Fifteen US citizens exposed to hantavirus on the cruise ship Hondius are being monitored at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, but their accommodations are closer to ship cabins than cold hospital rooms.
“It’s much more like a hotel than a patient care space,” said Angela Hewlett, medical director of the biocontainment unit, at a Monday briefing hosted by the University of Nebraska Medical Center, home of the quarantine unit.
Travelers can expect TVs, Wi-Fi, private bathrooms and exercise equipment, she said, all to ease the next few weeks of medical observation as doctors and health officials work to contain the U.S. outbreak.
People also ask
Artificial intelligence reinforced the insights from this story
•5 QUESTIONS
The National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska is a federally funded isolation facility established in 2019. It was activated to monitor US citizens exposed to the Andean strain of hantavirus from the Hondius cruise ship to prevent further spread in the US.
The recommended isolation period is 42 days, which is the incubation period for the Andes hantavirus strain. Passengers are monitored and assessed for several days to determine if longer isolation is necessary.
Yes, passengers can choose to go home. Doctors will assess whether the person is asymptomatic, has access to medical care and can isolate themselves in a separate part of their home to prevent infection.
Accommodations are designed to be comfortable and more reminiscent of hotel rooms or ship cabins than traditional hospital rooms. They include amenities such as televisions, Wi-Fi, private bathrooms and exercise equipment.
The Andes strain is the only known variant of hantavirus that can spread between humans through close contact. It can spread in shared spaces even without direct physical contact, such as during brief interactions in crowded indoor environments.
The National Quarantine Unit, a federally funded isolation facility, has only been activated once, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Established in 2019, the center features 20 rooms with individual vacuum systems in addition to creature comforts.
According to Michael Wadman, director of the National Quarantine Unit, the number of American passengers in quarantine ranges from 20 to 80 years old.
The recommended isolation for 42 days is the incubation period of the Andean strain of hantavirus — “a conservative time frame,” said Brendan Jackson, acting director for high-consequence pathogens at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All confirmed cases on the ship were caused by the Andean strain, the only one known to be transmitted from person to person.
But American passengers are not forced to be there. If the patient decides to go home, doctors will assess whether the person is symptom-free, has access to medical care and can isolate in a separate part of their home to prevent infection.
“We want to do this in the least restrictive way possible that is still safe, that protects the health and safety of passengers and their communities,” Jackson said.
One other patient from the ship who tested positive for hantavirus prior to arrival was isolated in UNMC’s Biocontainment Unit. This hospital room can treat anyone from patients who have tested positive but are stable, like the current individual, to those who are critically ill.
Two other American passengers, a couple, are being isolated at Emory University in Atlanta after one of them developed symptoms, although he did not test positive.
Officials decided to split care among different facilities to reduce the burden on one hospital system, said John Knox, the U.S. Department of Health’s principal deputy assistant secretary for strategic preparedness and response.
While all American passengers on the Hondius chose to remain in quarantine, it is imperative that anyone who chooses to leave stay near a hospital, Hewlett said, because there is no US-approved treatment for Andean hantavirus.
“For that reason, we rely on aggressive supportive care,” Hewlett said, which ranges from IV fluids to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — a life-saving measure that pumps blood into a heart-lung machine to remove carbon dioxide and get oxygen back into the body.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
